Publications Inguinal hernia: a patch covering only the myopect
The wide spread use of mesh procedures in inguinal hernia repair is justified by the rate of failures of suturing methods, which is 10±15% [1, 8, 11]. The actual rate of recurrence after the Shouldice procedure itself is probably underestimated, due to the high number of patients lost to follow-up [9]. However, a large mesh spread in the preperitoneal space, as in the Stoppa procedure and in laparoscopic techniques, can lead to difficulties due to adhesion of the mesh to the bladder and iliac vessels [19]. Simple patching of the myopectineal orifice by a small mesh placed at the deep aspect of the musculofascial layer, which was initially described by Rives [16], is effective [3, 5, 10] and avoids these drawbacks. Since the Rives technique is technically demanding and usually performed under general anesthesia, we tried to simplify the method. The aim of this study was to assess the results of this procedure.